Jesse St. James
Jesse St. James is a character in Glee. He is the former male lead of Vocal Adrenaline, and thanks to him, they won four consecutive national championships. He is introduced in the season one episode Hell-O when he begins dating Rachel Berry. He becomes a member of New Directions in the next episode, The Power of Madonna, to get closer to her as part of Shelby Corcoran's plan to get Rachel to find her mother. He transfers back to Carmel High in Funk and rejoins Vocal Adrenaline. He returns in the season two episode Prom Queen seeking Rachel's forgiveness after telling her he flunked out of UCLA and wants to begin his own business in training show choirs for competitions. He will return in the third season as confirmed by Lea Michele's tweet. Source Ryan Murphy confirmed he will be the new Vocal Adrenaline director and will be for four episodes, leading up to the big Nationals face off. Also, Ryan said that Jesse will have storylines with Alex from The Glee Project. Source Jesse St. James is portrayed by Jonathan Groff. Biography Jesse was a senior at Carmel High and the male lead singer of Vocal Adrenaline, although he briefly joined New Directions under the intention of being with Rachel Berry, only to then go back to Vocal Adrenaline. He is around eighteen years of age and admits in Prom Queen to being kicked out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for failing to attend all of his classes (How was I supposed to know I had to take the other classes?). Season One In the fourteenth episode, Hell-O, Rachel meets Jesse for the first time while at the music store. He approaches her while she is looking through a book of Lionel Richie's sheet music, taking her by surprise. She is immediately flustered, but Jesse remains relaxed, telling her that her rendition of Don't Rain on My Parade was flawed because she lacks "Barbra's emotional depth." But he assures her that she is talented, going on to explain that he is a senior hoping to win a fourth consecutive National title and that he's landed a full ride to UCLA the following year. Spotting a piano, Jesse sits down to play, prompting Rachel to tell him that she's nervous about singing in the store. He sighs, saying, "I remember when I used to get nervous," then explains that he gives impromptu concerts for the homeless to give back. He begins singing Lionel Richie's Hello, Rachel chiming in later. He then tells her that they should do it again sometime. Jesse is then mentioned in a scene between Rachel and Finn, where Rachel explains to Finn that she's moved on and is now dating Jesse. Jealous and worried, Finn tells Mr. Schuester about Jesse, who then goes to confront Shelby Corcoran, the director of Vocal Adrenaline about the relationship. Jesse is leading Vocal Adrenaline in a performance of Highway to Hell by AC/DC when Will arrives. At the song's close, Shelby says it was like "watching beige paint dry," and then instructs Jesse to give a "showface." Jesse obliges, as does the rest of the club, following his example. Throughout the remainder of the episode, Jesse's motives for dating Rachel are questioned, even after Shelby assures Will that he isn't spying on them. Afraid of losing the two most important things to her right now, Rachel then goes to confront Jesse to see if he really loves her or if he's using her, telling him that "if it turns out he's just playing she might die." He laughs, saying she's even more of a drama queen than he is, before telling her, that he's nuts about her and would never hurt her. Rachel that they keep their relationship secret, and Jesse says he understands. While they are kissing, Shelby appears, making eye contact with Jesse before walking away. In The Power of Madonna, Jesse is first shown in a flashback scene where he and Rachel are making out on Rachel's bed. Rachel explains to the others that he suggested that they "do it," and when she said she wasn't ready, he got "really crabby" and left shortly after, leaving behind the Care Bear that she got him. However, he later concedes that he was wrong for trying to pressure her into doing something she didn't want, and apologizes for it. He says that she deserves epic romance and promises to wait until she is ready. Rachel then tells him that she is ready. Jesse goes over to Rachel's house at a later date, and they are one of the three couples shown in a dream sequence, all six of them singing Like a Virgin. In the non-dream world, Rachel stays in her bathroom with the door closed. Jesse asks her to come out so they "can talk... or sing about it." Rachel then emerges, and explains that she can't be with Jesse completely knowing that she'd be "sleeping with the enemy." Jesse then transfers to William McKinley High School. He explains that his parents are in Bali, and he's opted to quit Vocal Adrenaline and move in with his uncle, so as to be with Rachel. Brittany asks Mr. Schuester if Jesse is his son. Mr. Schuester welcomes him into the group, which infuriates Finn. The others think he is only there to spy on them, also protesting that with him there it will be even harder to get solos. Rachel, however, is pleased to have Jesse there, as that means that as a member of New Directions, she can have an open relationship with him. Jesse then spots Finn and Rachel talking in the hallway and approaches them, challenging Finn to a sing-off. Finn instead welcomes Jesse to the group, saying he appreciates having another male lead to help him support the group, and invites Jesse to help with their new Madonna number. He is then shown in the group number Like a Prayer in which Jesse sings back-up in addition to a small solo with the choir in the background. In Bad Reputation, Jesse first appears in the scene where the others are watching Sue's own version of ''Physica''l. He urges them to post it online when Finn suggests it, saying, "you guys need to stop being such asses and start being badasses." Later on in a glee club practice, Jesse is sceptical when Will suggests they sing songs with bad reputations. He claims that the song Ice Ice Baby "should be arrested for the crime of sucking." However, after watching Will get the club involved in some loose choreography and joining in himself, Jesse admits that it the song has been "paroled." Later on, Rachel shows her "bad reputation" music video, Run Joey Run, and Jesse realizes that she had triple-cast him in the part of the "hunky, heroic male lead" with Puck and Finn. Jesse says that being triple-cast with two other guys opposite your girlfriend is humiliating. Hurt by Rachel's actions, Jesse leaves the choir room Later, Jesse attempts to talk with Rachel about what happened. She explains to him that she has a "pathological need to be popular," saying that a fellow star should understand. Jesse agrees, saying that if that's all they were, two stars, he would understand. But he isn't just another star; he is her boyfriend, and he should be enough for her. He says that since he gave up everything to be her "one and only," he can't see past that. He asks her not to talk to him at ballet club, furthering the point that he is actually hurt by what she did. When Rachel sings Total Eclipse of the Heart at the next glee club practice, Jesse chimes in, along with Finn and Puck. There is then a scene with Jesse and Rachel and what is presumed to be the ballet club, where Jesse takes over the song for a brief period of time. Back in the choir room, the members of the club leave the room, until it is just Rachel and Jesse. He looks up at her, hurt, before leaving the room as well. Jesse returns in the episode Dream On where he helps Rachel find her biological mother. It is revealed that he was in fact acting on Shelby's orders, but Jesse confesses to Shelby that he is starting to like Rachel, however, she wants him to befriend her so that she will finally be able to meet her daughter, Jesse on the other hand has taken befriend to mean seduce. Nothing is said as to whether her motives also include sabotaging New Directions. In Funk, he returns once again and it is revealed that he has transferred back to Carmel High School and left New Directions for Vocal Adrenaline, claiming that he was misconsidered at McKinley High School. All Vocal Adrenaline members perform Another One Bites the Dust in the beginning of the episode. Jesse calls Rachel asking her to meet him in the parking lot where Vocal Adrenaline eggs her, during which Jesse looks guilty and hurt. Jesse holds his egg, not wanting to throw it. When Giselle pressures Jesse to be "one of them", he looks at the egg in his hand and walks slowly to Rachel. She tells him to "break it like you broke my heart." He tells her that he loved her and, with a very pained expression, smashes the egg on her head. The males of New Directions are enraged and threaten to mess Jesse's face up, but Will calms them down, calls Jesse and asks him and his team to meet them in their auditorium. New Directions get back on Vocal Adrenaline at the end of the episode, performing Give Up the Funk and Jesse confesses he is "truly depressed" because Vocal Adrenaline was never able to "pull off a funk number." He is seen in Journey performing Bohemian Rhapsody with Vocal Adrenaline. Though he has no lines in the episode, he does continually look over at Rachel when the results are announced. He seemingly cannot take his eyes off her, looking over at her again even after Vocal Adrenaline is named the winner of Regionals, making it the fourth consecutive year that they have won. After he is lifted into the air by his teammates, holding the first place trophy, Jesse looks over at Rachel again. Season Two Before his return in Prom Queen, Jesse is mentioned three times in the second season: Once in The Substitute when Kurt describes his new friendship with Blaine as "Not another Jesse-Rachel traitor scenario to overcome", Once in Furt when Rachel tells Finn that she didn't sleep with him, and again in A Night Of Neglect when Rachel accuses Sunshine of spying, and Quinn replies, "You're one to talk; we told you the same thing about Jesse St. James last year." She admits that she was wrong in trusting him in that episode. Jesse makes a shocking return in the episode Prom Queen. He shows up when Rachel is practicing'' Rolling in the Deep'' as a potential song for prom. He interrupts her after she sings the first two lines, and they continue the song as a duet. When they finish singing Rachel asks Jesse what he was doing there and he says he was kicked out of college for not attending his classes and that he also wanted to see Rachel. He goes to the prom with Rachel, Sam, and Mercedes as friends. While the four are at dinner, he proposes that he start a show choir consultant business, which Rachel takes to with enthusiasm, calling him the "show choir whisperer." Finn and Quinn appear, Finn shooting a jab at Jesse, to which he responds with a compliment to Quinn and an offer to step in when she gets tired of her "boyfriend stomping on her pretty little feet." Later at prom, when he's dancing with Rachel, Finn comes over after seeing Jesse nuzzling Rachel's neck and says he should keep it "PG". Jesse defends himself saying Finn's not her boyfriend and that he should 'beat it'. Finn shoves Jesse and he retaliates. Sue returns right as Finn tries to punch Jesse, and they both get kicked out of prom. In Funeral, Mr. Schue announces that Jesse is going to be helping the glee club. When Finn says that he and Rachel should sing a duet at Nationals, Jesse says all the other guys are better, and, though Mike can't sing, he can dance. He also says Finn sings and dances 'like a zombie that has to poop.' Jesse convinces Mr. Schue that they should hold auditions to see who should be lead at Nationals. Santana, Kurt, Mercedes, and Rachel are the only ones that signed up, because Jesse's comment made Finn second-guess himself as their lead. Later when Kurt and Finn find out about Jean and they offer for the glee club to put together the funeral, Jesse says they shouldn't let anything distract them from the competition, saying that Vocal Adrenaline have already been hard at work and they should be too. The club does not take his advice and help with the funeral anyway. When Santana, Kurt, and Mercedes audition, he offers biting criticism in return, to which they take offense. When Rachel comes out and says she is singing My Man, he asks if she's singing about anyone in particular, and she says, "No, not really." When Rachel finishes, he praises her, which angers the others. In a later scene, Jesse is having Brittany tape him and Mr. Schue announcing the results. Brittany asks Jesse to come onto Fondue for Two to judge her cat. Jesse then tells Mr. Schue that with Rachel as their lead, they will win Nationals. Later we see Rachel in the auditorium. Jesse walks in, and Rachel asks why he wanted to meet her there. He said she was going to sing lead at Nationals, but then he said the real reason he came back was for her. He admits that he once thought that fame was the most important thing in his life, but now he knows that there is something more important: her. They kiss, not knowing that Finn is there and sees them. When Jesse and Rachel walk up to the list for who will be singing lead, it just says that there's an emergency Glee club meeting. Mr. Schue then announces that he will not be picking a lead vocalist based on their auditions, and that they will be doing original songs at Nationals. In New York, Rachel states that Jesse had been texting her a lot, but she didn't want anything to do with boys until after Nationals. When Finn and Rachel are performing Pretending, Jesse comes and sits next to Will telling him he couldn't stay away. When Will asks if he couldn't stay away from the show or Rachel, Jesse does not respond. After New Directions performs Rachel and Finn are talking about how they did and the kiss they shared on stage and when Finn says it was "The kiss of the century," Jesse says he was wrong and that it was unprofessional and it cost them the competition. He turns to Rachel and says she looked beautiful and that she did great, but she shouldn't have kissed Finn. Finn tries to tell Jesse to back off, claiming he was jealous of what they shared together. When Rachel asks Jesse what he's doing in New York, he says he came for her. This does not move her, she does not continue talking to him and kisses Finn later in the episode. Jesse can also be seen at the back of the group when New Directions goes to look at the results. He looks disappointed and upset. In a later scene, Kurt tells Blaine that afterwards Jesse told the others that it was the kiss that cost them Nationals. Blaine agrees that the kiss was unprofessional. Although it is unconfirmed, it is most likely that Jesse officially resigns after Nationals from assisting New Directions win the competition. Personality Jesse is the male equivalent of Rachel Berry. Inte﻿nse, talented, tactless and occasionally over dramatic, he seems to be driven to musical success, and hopes to one day be a famous performer. Jesse tends to come across as vain and conceited, and his hardcore desires have forced him to supposedly create an overly confident personality, which is arrogant, dismissive and rude. He claims that this behavior is a facade, and that beneath that, he's a good guy. He also seems to rush into things, like Rachel does, such as a relationship with her in which both confess to be 'deeply in love'. However, whether that is true was called into question, because he was suspected to be manipulating Rachel Berry to spy on New Directions for the Vocal Adrenaline coach, Shelby Corcoran. But although he really was sent by his coach, Shelby Corcoran, it seems that he really was in love with Rachel. Jesse is also portrayed as a manipulator when it comes to light that he was sent by Shelby, Rachel's biological mother, to befriend her in order to bypass the illegalities that restricted Shelby from confronting her. When Jesse's work is done, he's forced to return to Vocal Adrenaline. As a means of breaking up with Rachel, he shows he has gone back to Vocal Adrenaline by funkifying New Directions and egging Rachel in the school's parking lot. Despite his heartless actions, Jesse does seem to really care about Rachel since his show face slips while the egging is happening, and because he tells her "I loved you" right before he cracks the egg on her head. Jesse returns in Prom Queen in season two. Although many are wary of his motives, Jesse tries to show Rachel he is genuinely sorry for the heartbreak he caused her and wants to make it up to her. Although his character still comes off as a jerk, he seems to really care about Rachel and wants to help her succeed and grab more solos (since, according to him, she deserves them and is New Direction's only shot at winning Nationals). When Jesse becomes New Direction's performance advisor in Funeral, he is seen as harsh when he attacks Finn verbally at rehearsal and gives overly rude and dimissive negative feedback to Mercedes, Kurt, and Santana after the three auditions for a solo at Nationals and in Satana's place even ignore her performance in favor of doodling a cat. However, when Rachel performs he is shown to be extremely supportive and tries to manipulate Mr. Schuester into giving her the solo because he thinks she deserves it more than anyone else. However, the rest of the Glee kids question whether or not he's simply praising Rachel more in order to get back in her good graces. This opinion seems to partially supported by the fact that he tells Rachel that she got the solo, despite Will having not yet made a decision yet. This leads to him sharing a kiss Rachel, during which he states that Rachel matters more to him than fame itself. Later he and Rachel give arrogant consolances to Kurt, Mercedes and Satanna, until they realize that Will's decision wasn't the one Jesse promised Rachel. Family In The Power of Madonna, he stated that he had an uncle who lived within the McKinley High School district. In the episode Funeral (Season Two), it was found that Jesse had a mother, a father, a sister with bulimia, and a brother with an addiction. He claims his parents told him he was their favorite, leading his siblings to have difficulties in life. Songs Solos (In A Duet) Season One : Hello-rachel-and-jesse-11496172-350.gif|Hello (Rachel) (Hell-O) Hello Twelve Glee.jpg|Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love (Rachel) (Hell-O) (Unreleased, cut from episode) Season Two : Rolling in the deep.png|Rolling in the Deep (Rachel) (Prom Queen) Solos (In A Group Number) Season One: *Highway to Hell'' (Hell-O)'' (With Vocal Adrenaline) *Like a Virgin (The Power of Madonna) (With Rachel, Finn, Santana, Will and Emma) *Like a Prayer (The Power of Madonna) (With Rachel, Finn, Kurt, and Mercedes) *Burning Up (Not used in The Power of Madonna) (With Vocal Adrenaline) *Run Joey Run (Bad Reputation) (With Santana, Brittany, Rachel, Puck and Finn) *Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bad Reputation) (With Puck, Rachel and Finn) *Another One Bites the Dust (Funk) ''(''Wth Vocal Adrenaline) *Bohemian Rhapsody (Journey) (With Vocal Adrenaline) Trivia *Jesse was given +29 on the Glist created by Quinn. *Although Jesse has apparently been the lead in Vocal Adrenaline the entire series, he is not seen in any of the numbers by Vocal Adrenaline prior to Hell-O. *Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele (who plays Rachel) are best friends in real life after working for years together on Broadway in the musical Spring Awakening. *Jonathan even introduced Lea to the show's creator Ryan Murphy prior to the show's start and he later wrote the part of Rachel Berry with her in mind. *In an interview when asked if Jesse actually loved Rachel, Jonathan replied, "Yes... I think he did." *He had a full ride to the University of California, Los Angeles, but flunked out after not taking all of his classes. *Despite Carmel's known policy of purposely failing talented performers to keep them in Vocal Adrenaline, Jesse's math and science classes were taken for him by another student so he would pass. *Lionel Richie is one of his favourites (shown in Hell-O when he and Rachel dueted on Hello). *Jonathan had no idea how to play the piano, but he learned how for Bohemian Rhapsody to make his performance more realistic. *Jonathan doesn't play piano in real life, but before he decided he wanted to be an actor, he wanted to be a professional trumpet player. *He is seen to wear mainly black throughout his time on the show. The only times he has been seen wearing bright colors are in performances. *He is unable to pull off a funk number. *His name may be a parody of Jesse James, the infamous cowboy. Relationships Rachel Berry Rachel and Jesse meet in Hell-O at a music store, and started dating. In The Power of Madonna, Jesse transfers to McKinley so they can go public with their relationship. Rachel hurts him by recording a video with him, Finn and Puck as the joint lead males. He transfers back to be in Vocal Adrenaline, and eggs Rachel. Jesse originally started dating her as a way to introduce Rachel to her birth mother and work on his acting skills (Rachel's mother says that she told Jesse to befriend her), but he has said that he did love her, and looked sincere. This sincerity is proven when Jesse comes back to Lima in Prom Queen after failing out of college and asks Rachel to prom with her. He gets into a fight with Finn over Rachel at prom. It is appears that Jesse still obtains feelings for Rachel when he kisses her and tells her she's more important to him than fame is. In New York Rachel reveals that Jesse has been texting her. during Nationals Jesse shows he still has strong feelings for her when jealous of Rachel and Finn's kiss, but ultimately, Rachel chooses to be with Finn. Quotations Jesse St. James's Quotations Category:Characters Category:Minor Characters Category:Former William McKinley High School Students Category:Former Vocal Adrenaline Member Category:Former New Directions Member Category:Former Carmel High School Students